Film Blog Group Hug: SXSW Rocks!

I'm starting to think that I never should have read everyone else's blog entries about South by Southwest, because I'm envious of all the fun they're having and all the movies they liked that I haven't seen yet. I'm having a fabulous time, but Alan Cumming hasn't kissed me full on the mouth, and I missed the big Knocked Up premiere that everyone seemed to love. On the other hand, the festival's not over yet, so who knows what might happen?

Here are some of the reports coming in from SXSW about all kinds of aspects of the film festival and conference, so you can be jealous too:

Over at Anthony Kaufman's blog, Kaufman reveals that he was on the documentary award jury for SXSW and shares some of the jury's quotes about the award-winning docs. And again with Hannah Takes the Stairs; like Schnack, Kaufman also considers it part of a new indie-film movement.

Last year, I got a kick out of Eric Snider's daily SXSW film diary. This year, he's at it again, having loads of fun at movies and parties and Starbucks. He's up to Day 4 right now so go back again later and catch up on the rest of his entries. I particularly liked his Sunday entry; he reminds me that I need to write about the horror panel I attended that included Cinematical's Scott Weinberg.

Cinematical's editor emeritus Karina Longworth is at SXSW this year, covering film and music events for Netscape. She's also blogging about the festival films like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Running with Arnold on Vidiocy.com, her own personal site. (I interviewed Karina as part of the Studio SX program this year; I'll certainly post a link when the video from that interview is available online.)

Filmmaker and Austin Film Society staffer Bryan Poyser (Dear Pillow, The Cassidy Kids) has been posting his SXSW experiences at Back to Me. Poyser's short film Grammy's (which co-stars Hannah Takes the Stairs director Joe Swanberg -- the man is all over the fest this year) is playing at SXSW this week.

Tim Basham has been posting daily diary entries of the movies he's seen, including Flakes, Manufacturing Dissent and The Lookout. Also, I'm envious of the parties he's attended, including the Robert Rodriguez event at Antone's.